Bob Baldwin (Paterson, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for the Environment) Share this | Hansard source

I rise today to reflect on the storm events that occurred in the week preceding Anzac Day. My electorate of Paterson bore, perhaps, the brunt of the storm that occurred in New South Wales. But I also acknowledge that the storm had an impact in seats such as Hunter to the west and Newcastle to the south, and all the way down through the Central Coast.

These storms were the worst I have ever experienced or seen. The wind power was the equivalent of a category 2 cyclone. In June 2007, we witnessed the Pasha Bulker storm. Can I say to you, Deputy Speaker: the effects of this storm far exceeded anything that that storm delivered up to us.

This storm in particular was tragic in my electorate because three of my constituents died. These were aged people who were living in council flats in Alison Court. The waters came through early in the morning. They rose at such a rate that Robin Macdonald, a former SES volunteer herself, Brian Wilson, a national serviceman and Vietnam veteran, and Colin Webb were drowned in their homes, in their beds. It just defies belief. Also, another life was lost—that of Anne Jarmain, who perished when her car was swept away by flood waters.

Out of all of these stories of these tragedies, we also hear of the many heroic efforts of individuals and teams of people—people who jumped into the water, trying to save Anne Jarmain out at Maitland; people who were creative and innovative, such as Matt Finney, who used a wheelie bin as a floating device to go and get people out of their homes and so rescued five people. The heroes' names go on, and there are so many that I will not mention more because if I leave people out I will indeed offend them.

It has been very difficult, dealing with the effects of the storm. I went and visited all of my SESs and all of my emergency centres. I met with the people who work there. I met with the volunteers who turn up. I met with community members who just turned up there, not knowing what to do but just wanting to help. And I say thank you to all of those.

I met with a lot of the volunteers who had come from intrastate and interstate, to provide support and to work. Such was the size of the damage and carnage in my electorate and in surrounding electorates, like Hunter and Newcastle, that we needed that support.

Yesterday, the Prime Minister talked about this being a sunburnt country, a land of droughts and flooding rains; well, how apt it is that the place where that poem was written by Dorothea Mackellar, Torryburn, where she sat on the deck of the house there, is still, today, an isolated community. Their only bridge was washed away. In the meantime, there has been a temporary pedestrian bridge built. In the initial stages, people even shot a bow and arrow with a string across, and set up a flying fox to get supplies backwards and forwards to the community. Still there is very little in the way of telephone lines. The electricity is still out. There are many issues to be dealt with. The damage was massive. And that is only one story. Communities throughout my electorate—communities like Hinton, Seaham, and even where I live, around Maitland and Chisholm and Thornton—became isolated as the floodwaters rose.

Since the 1955 floods, we have recognised that there are issues, and levees have been built, post those floods. I would also put on the record that the reason we have an SES in Australia today is because of the 1955 floods; that is what formed it. But, despite all those levee banks being there, we have never seen rain inundation and, in particular, isolated rain inundation in areas like it. Dungog, I am informed, has never seen that volume of water come down—a volume of water that picked up four houses and swept them off their piers, and floated them not just onto the road but across the road, through the next house, across a railway line and into the next river.

I visited up there on the first available day on the Thursday. Michael Keenan, our justice minister, Mike Baird, the Premier, the Deputy Premier, Troy Grant, and David Elliot, the state Minister for Emergency Services and I walked around. We talked to one young lady there who was living in one of the houses. She saw the water come up and rushed across the road to safety, only to be greeted with their house coming across the road and lodging into the one next door. The tyre factory in Dungog next to these houses has had all of its walls blown out—all of its tools spread. People lost every possession they ever had. These sorts of storms bring out the best in Australians—the heroic efforts, the volunteer efforts, the compassion—but they also bring out the worst in some individuals. As I walked through the streets on the Friday with our then Acting Prime Minister, the Deputy Prime Minister, Warren Truss, and talked to the community, one of the family members came to me and said, 'We appreciate the efforts, and we have been up and down the creek looking for photos and trying to pick up bits and pieces.' But there had been looters. I think there is no more disgraceful act—that others would seek to steal, as people are trying to resurrect parts of their lives and regain some of their possessions and memories.

Throughout the whole of the community there is untold damage. As I have driven around my electorate, and I have been into some of the other parts, I have never seen damage that has taken so much. The number of houses without electricity—not for a day or a week but nearly four weeks on there are still places without electricity. Telephones are still out because of the breakages in the wiring. The damage has been so immense they just cannot be fixed. There are some areas where it is still unsafe to gain access to carry out the repairs. All repairs must be done safely. Even the main water supply line from upper Dungog at Chichester Dam had broken. It took time to get repaired. This has an impact on people's lives.

I have to say that people from Ozzie Care and other charitable groups came to the fore and delivered clothes, much needed furniture and, in particular, a collection of food items for distribution, at no cost, throughout our community. Ozzie Care did a tremendous job. I understand that they gave away in excess of $100,000 worth of food across the community—not just in my electorate but across the community. Such was the need that I rang my colleague Sharman Stone and said, 'Sharman, what do you think we could ask SPC Ardmona for?' They had already delivered a truckload of food up to one of the food banks, but they provided an additional three pallets of food direct to Ozzie Care to be distributed not only into my electorate but into the electorate of the member for Hunter, and the electorate of the member for Newcastle. They have serviced the needs of those communities—helping people who had lost everything and who had no money to put food on the table. I say thank you to those people.

As the Prime Minister said yesterday, we had a little bit of damage. For a while there I had an indoor swimming pool and a skylight. I did not really want one, but I ended up with one as a tree came down. The initial rain and wind that came through did damage and knocked out some of the powerlines, but the worst of it was that continual, intense rain for the next 24 hours, and that second wind storm that came through that brought down most of the trees. On our own property we lost something like 30 to 40 trees, and they were massive trees. I am now reflecting and reviewing—this is the second or third tree that has had a brush with our house—how far trees that are 60-, 80- and 100-foot high should be from people's houses, for there is no point living in danger if this will continue to happen.

I would like to put on the record that I am extremely proud of my son David, who stopped work, got his chainsaws and excavator, and drove around in our local community clearing people's trees so they had access to their driveways—not touching trees that were on houses; that was for the SES and the insurance companies to deal with, but helping people in the local community. I want to express my appreciation to my son for doing that. I spent a few days on a chainsaw myself and worked out how the vibrations affect your joints, as did many people. The clean-up continues. It will go on for quite some time. Out at Port Stephens the damage to roads has been immense. (Extension of time granted) To each and every individual who contributed and continues to contribute to the relief effort I say thank you on behalf of my community. I appreciate your efforts. They will not be forgotten.

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